


Visitation

by audiopilot



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, Touching, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audiopilot/pseuds/audiopilot
Summary: Jake escapes a trial against the Plague and finds himself on the other side of the exit gate still infected. Away from the other survivors, Jake waits to get better, but he's never really alone in the entity's forest.
Relationships: Michael Myers/Jake Park
Comments: 10
Kudos: 313





	Visitation

Infection inched over Jake's skin, his gloves not enough to protect him from the filth that coated Bill as he helped the other survivor down from the hook. 

As soon as his boots hit the ground, Bill threw up a vile mix of green slime and Jake hastily stepped aside to avoid its spray.

Bill spat on the ground and wiped at his mouth, eyes darting back towards the school building. He groaned, breath rattling in his chest. They could both hear the entity's warning that the Plague was getting closer. 

"I'll keep her on me," Bill said. His already rough voice was nearly guttural, and he was sick enough that the infection rose up around him in a putrid mist. Jake took quick, shallow breaths to avoid breathing in too much though he knew it was futile. "Work on those damn generators. She can't get all of us."

Bill limped away down the open street. 

Jake ducked behind the chain-link fence when the Plague emerged from the school's front entrance. She was tall enough that her crown scraped the top of the door frame. Vines grew between the fence in sections, and they provided enough cover that Jake avoided her notice as she followed Bill, who began to run. The pungent mix of herbs and sour rot that surrounded her hit Jake's nose. He forced down the urge to gag. In the early stages of sickness, he was still able to repress the symptoms, but soon he would be like Bill.

Tapp was already dead.

The Plague had been relentless in her pursuit, not letting him out of her sight even when Bill had attempted to intervene. Despite shouldering the brunt of her aggression, Tapp hadn't stopped fighting for several minutes. After Bill jumped in to free him from his first hook, Tapp had taken her on a chase that went from one corner of the schoolyard to the other, allowing them to fix three generators with relative ease. Jake had only caught Tapp's fight for survival in parts: spotting him running through the playground in the distance, hearing him pass through the house above while Jake fixed the basement generator, stepping over the fragments of smashed pallets.

It left Feng Min and Jake to repair the last two generators while Bill kept her busy. Jake hadn't seen her since the second generator they'd done together.

Inside the school, Jake went to the lower level where he knew the generator hadn't yet been fixed. The air underneath the school was humid, the hot pipes lining the walls heating the air as they seethed out puffs of steam. As he began, Jake's attention flicked to the three entrances to the room. He'd hear the Plague long before she got close enough to attack, but it was a habit that had saved him from a hit more than once.

His stomach was hot. Jake dropped a hand to rub at the bubbling, rolling sensation inside that made him queasy. He began to regret his choice a little with the sweltering atmosphere amplifying the slow creep of infection. In spots, his skin began to prickle, and Jake pulled back his sleeve to see that angry, red sores were forming on his wrist.

Jake tugged his scarf loose as his throat began to tighten and burn with effort to smother the oncoming coughs. Suddenly, the nausea surged with such intensity that he vomited. The mix of mucus and stomach acid ripped its way out of him. It hit the ground between his feet, splashing up onto the generator's base and quickly contaminating the machine. Grimacing at the taste in his mouth, Jake struggled to unclog the fuel valve. The hard clenching of his stomach as it kept trying to empty itself was distracting. 

Feng Min finished a generator as Bill finally went down. The Plague hooked him far enough away that Jake calculated he would finish the generator in time, if he didn't attempt a rescue. Would Feng Min try? 

His mouth and the back of his throat were scalded dry. Jake craved something to drink. He swallowed and it made his throat painfully click. 

Half-watching Bill's tiny, struggling form, Jake reached down inside to grasp at where he'd unplugged the fuel line. Something wet slid down his hand, soaking into his glove and made the hose slippery when he found it. He managed to fit it back into its housing before he removed his hand from the generator to peel back the glove.

Green pus leaked down the side of his hand, dropped from the tip of his little finger. More sores were spreading over the back of his hand.

Jake coughed. The smell was awful.

Light footfalls above were the only warning before Feng Min dropped down from the open hole in the ceiling. She landed with a grunt at the impact, uncoiling from the crouch she'd landed in only to hesitate when she saw him

Unlike him, she hadn't been infected. 

"It looks close," Feng Min commented, studying the moving pistons.

"About twenty seconds," said Jake. He licked his lips and then wished he hadn't when his tongue touched the bitter sore forming at the corner of his mouth. From where his clothes brushed over his skin, he could tell they'd spread up his arm and neck to his face.

His next round of coughing was wetter, something thick dislodging in his chest and trying to work its way out. It was getting harder to breath.

Feng Min's nose wrinkled. She covered her own mouth, looking in Bill's direction. His time was nearly up.

"It's breaking something over there," she said. Feng Min didn't glance back at Jake as she declared, "I'll wait by the gate outside."

Without waiting for a reply, she disappeared around the corner of the stairs. 

It was the smarter play. With the Plague's behavior this trial, and the fact that she hadn't come back to the school, Jake assumed she lingered around Bill to punish any attempt at aid, and Feng Min had confirmed it. It happened sometimes. With both of them on the opposite side, it was obvious they wouldn't make it there. Bill was never upset at being sacrificed the way some of the others were and was likely only holding on to give them more time. Still, it wasn't a choice Jake liked making. Too late to change anything about it now. He slipped the last part back in place and the generator rumbled under his hands, coming to life to provide the final push of electricity to power the exit gates.

Bill's aura winked out with the thunder of the entity's emergence when it consumed his body. 

After using the generator to help him stand, Jake followed Feng Min's path up the stairs. Outside the walls, he could already hear the gears grinding. She was opening the gate. He could also hear the Plague getting closer and knew their own time was trickling away.

Part of the infection was an overwhelming thirst. The entity showed the locations of the healing fountains, luring him in with the promise of a cure. They also made the Plague stronger, turning her noxious vomit into something acidic and wounding.

With Feng Min already on the gate, Jake could go to one of the farther away fountains and drink from it.

Jake was halfway out of the side doorway when the Plague was coming from the right started him. He been expecting her to approach in the more obvious direction from where Bill had died. She wasn't close enough to attack, passing where the dumpsters lined up against the outer fence, but she spotted him. 

Instead of the infectious fumes rising from her body, glowing embers drifted in her wake. 

She opened her mouth, chest heaving as thick, black blood shot out in his direction. He threw himself backwards into the school, the concrete of the sidewalk sizzling as it was eaten away. Jake hurried deeper into the building where he could use the hallways to avoid getting hit by her vomit.

But she didn't follow him inside, and Jake paused at the top of the stairs. 

The gate rang its alarm, reaching the final stage and Jake ran back through the green-tiled hallway, over the outside sidewalk, and through a collapsed section of fencing to catch sight of Feng Min making a desperate bid to open it as the Plague heaved dark vomit across her back. She shouted, hanging onto the brick to stay on her feet, but still managed to yank the lever down again. With a screech of metal on metal, the gate ground open.

Feng Min stumbled, trying to make it past the doors, and the Plague inhaled with a thick gurgle, preparing to attack again.

Jake sprinted and then slid the last stretch across the grass to get in between them.

The Plague's retched and it struck his chest. He was knocked to the ground. It dissolved through his jacket and shirt to melt over his skin. He used his arms to cover his face, not wanting to experience a face-full like his previous trial against her. Behind him, Feng Min screamed and fell with a heavy thud.

"Go," Jake called out to her. Feng Min moaned in pain, but he could tell without looking that she was pulling herself across the stone in a crawl. Lowering his stinging arms, he stared up at the Plague. 

Her one eye met his. Compared to her rotting body, only half her face was twisted by decay, the other half nearly human. Her expression stayed unmoving as she stared down at him. This close, the slick exposed fat where her skin had fallen away glistened in the warm glow of the light bulb hanging from the archway. Her lantern-like weapon rocked slightly, spewing vapors and flickers of ash. The scent of decomposition was overwhelming. He heaved, rolling onto his side to throw up. 

Shaking through the next wave of nausea, Jake almost missed the soft brush of her tatter, silken robe sweeping past him. She picked up Feng Min before she could crawl completely out, dragging her back by one leg before lifting her into the air.

"No!" Feng Min shouted, fighting to escape. Her wide eyes locked on Jake over the Plague's shoulder. "What are you waiting for? Get out!" 

He crawled over the mix of Feng Min's blood and his own stomach contents while Feng Min was forced up on a hook. Jake panted, barely making it through the brick archway before the Plague could return for him. The stone under his bare hand gave way to grass and Jake was sucked towards the other side, back on his feet. The stinging on his arms vanished.

Jake leaned over to vomit.

"Isn't that shit supposed to stop?" Bill asked, standing a few feet away with Tapp beside him. Bill eyed him, dragging on his cigarette and exhaling a puff of smoke. Unlike Jake, he had been healed entirely, no trace of infection left. 

"You okay?" asked Tapp more gently.

"I'm fine," Jake replied. He tried to spit out the foul taste. While the damage from Plague's attack was gone, the sharp pain stabbing in his chest with every breath left him unsteady. The oozing sores on the back of his hand had scabbed over. Healed, but not fully. He avoided their scrutiny by looking back at the gate. The Plague stood on the other side of the tangled rebar that blocked her from following, facing their direction like she could somehow see them.

"Feng Min didn't make it," Jake continued. His cheek itched, and he accidentally picked at one of the scabs on his face when he went to scratch it.

"We saw," Tapp replied, exchanging a glance with Bill.

"Not too bad," commented Bill. "One's better than none."

"Wish I could have helped more," Tapp said, rubbing at the back of his neck. "She wouldn't leave my ass."

"You did good. Can't do much when the sons of bitches play dirty."

Tapp hummed an agreement Jake cleared his throat in an attempt to suppress the urge to cough. He chose to focus on the distant campfire as they wondered what was taking Feng Min so long. 

"She could have slipped off the hook," guessed Tapp.

"Struggling out of spite, I bet," Bill said, a grin obvious from his tone, "It's what I'd do."

Tapp chuckled and agreed.

Jake studied the discolored spots on his hand left behind by the infection. They looked less obvious now, like whatever was in the way of the entity's usual restoration of his body wasn't strong enough. He wouldn't go back until the infection passed or he was put in another trial. The others would be curious about why he was still sick. Better to wait it out alone than around everyone else. Jake assumed that if the sores were slowly healing, then the rest of the infection would eventually fade away with time.

"Go on back, kid," Bill said, "We'll wait for her."

Jake noticed both men looking at him. He nodded, glad for the excuse to leave. Their gazes were heavy on his back. Tapp quietly said something to Bill, but Jake was too far away to catch his words. When he couldn't see them anymore, he veered off to the side, where the trees were placed closer together and the mist became thick enough to obscure the campfire. 

On his own, he finally stopped trying to hold back the overwhelming need to get out the thick mucus building in his throat. He took quick, hissed inhales in between the jarring coughs, trying not to think about how the lining of his lungs was sloughing away. It filled his mouth, soft and rotten, and Jake spat it out. 

It wasn't the first time he'd gone against the Plague, nor the first time he'd managed to get out while infected. There was no obvious reason why this time had been different. But the entity was like that; every time Jake thought he understood it, things would change.

He didn't make it very far before he had to stop and throw up again. It seemed impossible there was anything left inside. It kept coming, his gut heaving upwards to try and escape. When it finally subsided, Jake was too shaky to keep walking, wiping at his running nose with an unsteady hand. The vomit was more yellow than green, watery instead of thick with the ooze of the Plague's infection. Jake took it as another sign that he was healing.

With a hand over his stomach, Jake waited until the nausea wasn't so strong that he was constantly on the verge of gagging. Even when it went away, his chest still hurt and made breathing difficult. He took a single step forward and then stopped, looking around. He'd thought he'd heard something. A rustle of dead leaves or creak of wood. But there was only the rasp of his own breathing. 

Spotting a tree with heavy, drooping branches, Jake pushed them aside to squeeze down into the hollow at the tree's base. The cover wasn't much, but it was better than sitting out in the open as his strength trickled away. Jake leaned against the trunk at his back. Within the darkness created by the shelter of the tree, Jake pressed his bare hand into the soil. It crumbled and gave way under his weight, the texture too soft and fragile. Just another thing that didn't quite match its appearance. The pale grass never returned to the earth and, despite the constantly falling leaves, the trees never grew bare.

Everything was stuck in the process of dying.

For a while, Jake sat still, the occasional coughing fit pulling on his tender stomach. At least he didn't feel like vomiting anymore. He wanted to clean his teeth, but toothbrushes weren't one of the things the entity gave them. Not that they really needed it, since there was nothing to eat. Jake moved to get more comfortable, sniffling as he curled on his side with the tree's exposed roots for a hard pillow. There was nothing else to focus on besides how badly he felt.

He hated being sick.

Before he could catch himself, Jake started remembering the very last time he'd been ill.

He'd been old enough that he'd thought he could get through it on his own. Shutting himself in his room, he'd pulled the blankets up over his head and sweated in and out of fevered dreams. When he'd finally woken up, it had been to an aching head and his mom's long nails combing through his hair, giving him something else to focus on besides the pain. She'd made him jook and honeyed tea and helped him eat like he six instead of sixteen. Afterwards, with night falling outside the windows, she'd sat at his bedside and read from a novel, the lamplight reflecting off her glasses and the gentle flutter of turning pages comforting. He'd deliriously hoped his fever would never break, would allow the moment to be preserved without end.

It was one of the few instances at that point where she'd looked and seen him, not the stranger she wanted him to be.

Jake closed his eyes. He didn't want to think about her in this place. Gradually, his coughs grew further and further apart. In their place, an icy coldness spread inward. He wrapped his arms around his middle in a sluggish effort to stay warm, unable to fight the full-body shivers.

Drifting in an uncomfortable haze, he snapped into sudden alertness at a soft sound.

He cracked gummy eyelids apart. Something brilliantly white hovered above, and it looked like the moon. How many times had he'd laid in his sleeping bag under the night sky and watched it slowly drift amidst the wavering light of the stars? He'd been alone but not alone, surrounded by the hum of insects, the soft calling of owls, and the quiet passing of animals through the underbrush as the prickle of something crawled over his hand.

Then he realized something really was touching him.

It was Michael Myers, kneeling to hold back the branches. He had one long arm stretched out, allowing his fingers to reach the back of Jake's hand. 

"Oh, it's you."

The hoarse words squeezed past his sore throat, sounding calm despite how Jake's pulse stuttered with abrupt fear. He hadn't even noticed him approach. Carefully, Jake pulled his hand out from under Michael's, tucking it beneath his arm. Michael's hand hovered in place.

They had crossed paths within the forest more times than he was comfortable with, but Michael hadn't attacked him. The first time, Jake had been so startled he'd run straight back to the campfire. The second, he'd slowly walked away without turning his back on the killer. Both times, Michael had merely watched him, half-hidden among the trees. 

Jake eventually grew used to occasionally seeing Michael outside of trials, though he kept his distance and didn't wait around once he spotted him. It became a challenge to pick up on the small signs of Michael's presence: heavy steps and breathing and the gradual, hair-raising understanding that he was being watched. As sick as he was, he hadn't even thought about him. Now he had no defense, too weak to run for it. Jake stared up at Michael, the weight of the situation pressing down on him.

When Michael moved, Jake shifted to further wedge himself against the tree, but he couldn't avoid the hand that encompassed his leg, right above his ankle. Then he began to drag Jake out from the tree's shelter.

"Let go," Jake snarled, and set his boot over Michael's hand. He ground his heel down, but it was futile. His other leg was captured too, fingers roughly digging into the soft back of his knee.

Even that short struggle was exhausting, his lungs burning as he gasped for air. It turned into a series of wet coughs that left Jake dizzy when Michael pulled him out into the open. Jake tried to pry the hand on his knee away, teeth clicking together from the rush of cold air along his back.

Actually, if Michael killed him, then the lingering infection would disappear entirely. Jake relaxed. But Michael didn't pull his knife out from wherever he had it hidden. He just sat there. Sitting like this put them on more even ground and Jake realized this was the closest he'd been to Michael outside of being sacrificed. 

He couldn't help flinching when Michael suddenly shoved his palm flat over Jake's forehead. It spanned the width of it, from temple to temple, huge and hot. Jake blinked, stared up at Michael, and the white mask offered nothing. Was he... _was he trying to check Jake's temperature_? 

"Aren't you going to kill me?" Jake demanded.

A long pause. Very slowly Michael's head went side-to-side in a "no."

"Then what—" Jake coughed, curling forward and dislodging Michael's touch. Jake replaced it with his own trembling hand. Despite the chills wrecking his body, his skin was burning. Was the entity pulling the symptoms from his own memories of recovering from past illnesses? 

Distracted, Jake's composure broke apart with a hitched cry when he was hauled forwards. He was whirled around, legs tangling together as Michael pulled him onto his lap. Jake squirmed, unable to do more than flop partially out of the hold before Michael locked arms around him and kept him in place. Breathing hard, Jake tried shoving against Michael's forearms, but it was useless. He was so tired. The exertion spent trying to get away from Michael left him drained. It might have been humiliating if he wasn't unfortunately used to being pushed around by killers.

Trapped, Jake could feel too intimately where their muscles and bones misaligned. Michael was unnaturally still beneath him besides his breathing. The strangeness of the situation seemed like a dream, though it didn't have the pale, collapsing nature of a Freddy Krueger nightmare. Again, Jake tried to jerk out of Michael's clutch, but it only succeeded in Michael squeezing until Jake's ribs creaked in protest. He hissed between his clenched teeth in pain.

He didn't know what to do.

Jake went limp, the only option he had, and eventually Michael's arms loosened from their too-tight confinement into something like an embrace. This was more unnerving than any previous interaction with Michael, because Jake didn't understand the reason behind it. His gaze dropped to their legs. His own were a lot shorter. Like most of the killers, Michael was bigger than normal, with a body made to overpower and hurt.

The back of his mouth began to tickle, and Jake tried to control it, eyes watering, but it was too much. He coughed, wincing at how it tore at out of his tender throat. Michael's hand moved up to press over the flat bone of his sternum. The pressure of it actually helped to relieve some of the ache in his chest. And Michael's body heat, through the layers of his clothing, had stopped Jake's shivering.

He couldn't wrap his head around any of it. Michael obviously recognized he was unwell, but instead of capitalizing on it by plunging his knife into Jake's chest, his reaction was to hold onto him. Never a tactile person, the only way Jake was used to being touched now was during trials: killers hitting and dragging him around or survivors bandaging his wounds and lifting him from a meat hook. He avoided the casual interactions the other survivors found so easy to share, patting shoulders or slapping hands after successful trials. 

There was no way to avoid contact now with Michael surrounding him on all sides. Eyelids heavy, Jake's breath wheezed in and out. His chest barely rose under the weight of Michael's hand, though the compulsion to cough had eased. Thinking, Jake stared at the tree in front of them, not really seeing it. Though he wasn't exactly comfortable, it didn't feel bad. He couldn't remember the last time someone had held him like this. The realization loosened something inside that left Jake biting down on the inside of his lips in denial.

The tightening inside his chest had nothing to do with infection. His expression was changing before he could stop it and he hung his head, a small noise slipping out when he exhaled.

The arms surrounding him moved, Michael forcing Jake around until he was draped half-sideways across his lap. It allowed him a view of Michael's mask, turned in his direction, and he could feel the invisible scrutiny of his gaze. Any defense Jake had was cracked and peeled back as easily as an eggshell, soft innards exposed to Michael's silent stare.

"Don't," Jake mumbled, looking away, "Don't look at me."

Michael grabbed his jaw to yank his face back in refusal. The pressure was hard enough to hurt, grinding the inside of his mouth against his teeth. Jake had no choice but to see him. To be seen.

He'd never been this close to the mask. When Michael had killed him in past, it had been at an arm's length, his hand choking Jake's neck while shoving the knife into his abdomen. Now it's washed out features were only inches away. Where it ended, he could see Michael's skin enough to know he was white, but that was the only hint of what was under the mask. Even the eye holes were abnormally black, Jake's focus drawn helplessly into them. 

The moment extended, Jake's confusion bleeding out when nothing else happened. His face grew warm. He had nowhere to go, no defense against himself. No mask of his own to hide behind.

Michael's head lowered and automatically Jake leaned away, though he was unable to get very far with Michael's arm at his back. All Michael did was lay his face against Jake's chest, the mask's fake hair tickling his chin as he leaned against him. He pressed the mask's ear over Jake's hammering heartbeat. It was impossible that Michael couldn't feel how it was too big for Jake's chest, wild in its pounding.

Jake had no control over the high sound that escaped his throat when Michael's hands crept under the back of his jacket and shirt. The unexpected touch of warm skin left him grasping at Michael's shoulders, back arching and inadvertently shoving his chest further against Michael's face. He twisted his fingers over the hard curve of them, neither pushing away nor pulling closer. Michael's hands slid upwards over tense muscle, thumbs hooking around the spread of his rib cage to hold Jake wholly within his hands. He could hear Michael's heavy breathing, trapped by the mask and faster than before. Jake listened to the back and forth rhythm of it.

Their breathing was the same, their lungs matching in movement. Jake lifted one hand to hover over the top of Michael's mask, not quite daring to touch it.

"Jake?" Tapp's voice unexpectedly called out.

Michael's fingers dug in too hard and Jake jumped at the fingernails scratching his skin. He should call out for help, but, crazily, Jake considered staying silent to let the other survivor pass them by. The decision was taken from him when he was lifted upwards so fast it made his head spin. Michael stood, roughly putting Jake back on the ground in a way that made Jake stagger. The trees kept them hidden, Jake unable to make out Tapp when he checked where his voice had come from. The image of Tapp discovering them left Jake strangely conflicted, like he was going to be caught doing something he shouldn't. 

"Where are you?" Tapp asked, louder. He was getting closer.

They must have returned to the campfire and noticed Jake's absence. Usually they didn't follow him, but apparently Tapp was worried enough about his health to try and find him. Jake looked up at Michael, very aware that he hadn't stopped touching Jake's bare skin. 

Keeping his voice low to prevent Tapp overhearing, Jake said, "I need to go."

At first, Jake thought Michael would ignore him, but then the hands under his shirt withdrew. Jake shivered at the slow trail of his fingers leaving. He swallowed down the urge to say something, to acknowledge what had taken place, and realized his throat no longer hurt. The infection had finally retreated.

Jake took one step back and Michael reached for him again. He tensed at the hand coming towards his face, but Michael only brushed his cheek. He felt crusted blood loosen and flake away. Blinking up at Michael, Jake 

He walked away, unable to resist one last glance over his shoulder. Michael hadn't moved from his spot, watching him. Dead leaves drifted from the trees above, the thin tree trunks closing in around Michael as Jake got further away. Jake turned around and walked faster, only stopping when he spotted Tapp's figure ahead.

"Hey," Jake called out. Tapp turn around, his badge swinging from where it hung around his neck.

"You alright?" he asked. His gaze narrowed, examining Jake from head to toe.

"I'm fine," Jake insisted again. And he was, the sharpness in his chest had abated like it never existed. "I can take care of myself."

"Not saying you can't," Tapp replied, frowning. "No one should be alone out here in your state." He gestured to the woods surrounding them. Had Tapp had spotted Michael out here before? Maybe Michael was stalking anyone who ventured out among the trees, but as he considered it Jake knew it wasn't true. Any of the others would have said something. Unlike Jake. He idly rubbed at where Michael's fingers had touched his face.

"You look better," continued Tapp. "Hope that's not going to be a thing, staying sick."

"Yeah," Jake agreed, distracted. He was already wondering what would happen the next time he came across Michael alone in the forest. 

Under his clothes, faint but impossible to ignore, was the tingling of scratch lines down his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a [request on tumblr](https://audiopilot.tumblr.com/post/190707600684/visitation-audiopilot-dead-by-daylight-video) for Michael/Jake with a sick Jake. Hopefully it's not too out-of-character orz.
> 
> I listened to slowed/reverb versions of [Adore You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JdyKGom9Oo), [Contaminated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DiPqlvNpLk), and [Say So](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnZ_Z_-48YU) while writing this though their lyrics have nothing to do with the fic lol.


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